Google Results About You: What It Removes and What It Won’t

Google’s Results About You tool finds search results that expose your home address, phone number or email, lets you request their removal from Google Search, and notifies you when new results with your contact details appear. Since February 2026 it also handles images of your driver’s license, passport and Social Security card, and it tracks every request in one dashboard. It does not remove news coverage, reviews, opinions or most public-record content, and it never deletes anything from the website that published it.

Key takeaways

• Results About You covers personal contact details, government ID images and, through Google’s wider personal information policies, doxxing content and non-consensual explicit images.
• A successful request removes the result from Google Search only, and often only from searches that include your name.
• Google may decline requests when the content is newsworthy, and the tool does not touch news articles, reviews or commentary.
• The proactive monitoring feature is the most useful part for executives and public figures because it catches new exposures automatically.
• Anything the tool will not remove needs a different route: publisher outreach, platform review policies or a suppression campaign.

What does Google’s Results About You tool do?

Results About You is a free Google Search feature, accessible from your Google account, that scans search results for your personal contact information and lets you request removal directly from the interface. According to Google’s Results About You help page, the tool finds “contact details like your address, phone number, or email” and lets you “set up notifications for new results” so you hear about new exposures without running manual searches.

In practice you enter the details you want Google to look for, review the results it finds, and choose which ones to submit. Each submission is reviewed against Google’s personal content policies rather than approved automatically.

The feature was built for a narrow problem: people-search sites, data broker pages and scraped directories that republish home addresses and phone numbers at scale. It works well for that problem. It is not a general-purpose “remove anything about me” button, and most of the frustration people feel with it comes from expecting it to be one.

Can Google remove my personal information from search?

Yes, for defined categories. Google’s personal information removal policy lists what qualifies. You can request removal of results that show your address, phone number or email; your Social Security or tax ID number; your bank account or credit card number; pictures of your signature or ID; private records such as medical records; and confidential usernames and passwords.

The same policy covers doxxing, which Google defines as your personal information shared alongside “explicit or implicit threats,” or “a significant amount of aggregated personal info without a legitimate purpose.” That second clause matters for executives whose home address, family names and daily routine have been compiled into a single hostile page.

Google’s broader content removal overview adds further categories that route through separate forms: non-consensual explicit images, non-explicit images of minors, and content about you on sites with exploitative removal practices (the category most mugshot sites fall into). You must be the subject of the content, or an authorized representative, to file.

What changed in February 2026

Per 9to5Google’s February 10, 2026 report, Google expanded the tool in three ways. First, it now accepts requests for images of government identification, specifically driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security cards, alongside the existing phone, email and home address coverage. Second, people removing non-consensual explicit images can select multiple images and submit them in a single form, with a “Future searches” option that proactively filters similar explicit results going forward. Third, you can now “track the status of all your requests in one place,” with email notifications as each request moves through review. The ID removal feature launched in the United States first.

Fix what your name search showsViral Spike Marketing maps every result on your first two pages, pursues removal where a policy allows it, and places accurate, authoritative coverage where it does not.Book a free consultation ›

How do you submit a Results About You request?

The process is short. The waiting is the long part.

1. Sign in to your Google account and open Results About You from your account settings or from the three-dot menu next to any search result.
2. Enter the contact details you want monitored: name, home address, phone number and email. Google uses these only to match results.
3. Review the results Google surfaces. For each one, confirm it actually shows your information rather than someone with the same name.
4. Submit a removal request for each qualifying result. If you are removing ID images or explicit images, use the dedicated flow so you can group multiple images.
5. Turn on notifications. This is the proactive monitoring feature, and it is the reason to set the tool up even if nothing needs removing today.
6. Track status in the dashboard. Each request shows as in progress, approved or denied, with an email when the status changes.
7. If a request is denied, read the reason. Denials usually mean the content fell into an exception (newsworthy, public interest) or the result did not actually show the qualifying information.

Google does not publish a review timeline. Expect clear-cut requests (a data broker page showing your home address) to be simpler to approve than requests involving aggregated information or arguable public interest, which are the ones most often denied.

What does “removed” actually mean?

Two things trip people up here.

First, removal happens in Google Search, not on the source site. Google’s removal overview is explicit that a successful request only affects Google’s results and “the content may still exist on the web.” The page is still live, still indexed by Bing and other engines, and still visible to anyone with the link. If you want the information gone, you still need the site owner to delete it. Google’s page notes that once a site owner removes information, it will eventually drop out of Search through normal recrawling.

Second, many approvals are partial. Google’s Results About You help page describes a partial removal outcome where the result “won’t show up on Google search results for any search query that contains your name or identifier. But, it might show up if they search for something else.” For most reputation purposes that is enough, because the exposure people worry about is what a name search shows. It is not the same as the page being deindexed.

What does Results About You not cover?

This is the section that saves people weeks. Google’s personal information policy states plainly: “If the content is about something important or newsworthy, like the news, Google might not take it down.” The tool is built for private data exposure, not for content you dislike.

Content type	Covered by Results About You	Alternative route
Home address, phone, email on a data broker or people-search page	Yes	Also opt out at the source so it does not respawn
Images of your driver’s license, passport or SSN card	Yes (US first, since Feb 2026)	Report to the hosting site; consider identity theft monitoring
Bank, credit card, tax ID or Social Security number	Yes, via the personal information form	Contact your bank and the site host in parallel
Doxxing page with threats or aggregated personal details	Yes, via the doxxing policy	Report to the platform; involve law enforcement if threats are credible
Non-consensual explicit images	Yes, with multi-image and “Future searches” options	Platform reporting; legal counsel in states with relevant statutes
Mugshot on a site that charges for removal	Yes, via the exploitative-site policy	See our mugshot and arrest record removal guide
News article about you, even an unflattering one	No	Publisher outreach, corrections and updates; see your real options for removing negative articles
Negative reviews on Google, Yelp or Glassdoor	No	Platform policy reporting and appeals; see how to remove a Google review in 2026
Blog posts, forum threads, social posts with opinions about you	No	Direct outreach, platform terms violations, or suppression
Court records and public filings on government sites	Generally no	Sealing or expungement where available, then update requests
Your business phone or office address on a business listing	Generally no	Update or remove the listing at the source

Three patterns account for most denials. Content that is newsworthy or clearly in the public interest, such as coverage of a lawsuit, an arrest or a business dispute. Content that is professionally relevant, such as a business address that you publish yourself. And content on government or official sites, where Google defers to the public record.

What should you do about the content the tool won’t remove?

Start by separating the problem into removal candidates and suppression candidates. Removal means the page comes down or Google stops showing it. Suppression means the page stays, but it stops appearing where anyone looks.

For news coverage, the removal path runs through the publisher, not Google. Editors will sometimes update a story, add a resolution, anonymize a name or unpublish under a clear policy, and each publisher handles this differently. Our guide to whether you can remove negative articles from Google walks through the outreach, legal and correction routes in detail, so we will not repeat them here.

For reviews, the route is the platform’s own content policy. Google, Yelp and the others remove reviews that violate specific rules, not reviews that are merely negative.

For everything that stays live, the practical answer is suppression: building and promoting enough strong, accurate content about you that the unwanted result drops off the first page. That is a months-long project, and it is the core of professional reputation work. Read how to suppress negative search results the right way before starting, because badly built suppression campaigns leave a footprint that is worse than the original problem.

If you are an individual rather than a company, our guide to reputation management for individuals covers how a personal search footprint differs from a brand’s.

Should executives and public figures set this up even without a problem?

Yes, and the reason is monitoring, not removal. Once your details are entered, Results About You keeps scanning and notifies you when a new result exposes them. Data brokers republish continuously, and people-search sites regenerate profiles from new public records, so a one-time cleanup rarely holds.

The tool fits naturally into a broader routine. We describe a full monthly online reputation audit elsewhere; Results About You is the cheapest line item on that checklist and the one most people skip.

Two cautions. The tool matches the exact details you enter, so it will not find an address with a different formatting or a phone number with a different country code unless you add those variants. And it only monitors Google. Bing, DuckDuckGo and AI assistants that pull from other indexes require their own checks.

Where a reputation management agency fits

Results About You handles a defined slice of the problem for free, and we tell clients to use it before paying anyone for the same work. What it cannot do is negotiate with a publisher, navigate a platform’s review appeals, or build the positive footprint that pushes an unwanted result off page one.

That is the work a reputation management agency does: mapping every result on your first two pages, pursuing removal where a policy or a publisher allows it, and placing accurate, well-sourced content where removal is not possible. Viral Spike’s approach leans on guaranteed editorial placements in recognized outlets, published and indexed, which carry real weight in search because of the domains they sit on. If you want a second opinion on what is removable and what is not, contact us with the URLs and we will tell you plainly.

Decide what the tool can solve, then plan for the rest

Run Results About You first. Enter your name, address, phone and email, submit every qualifying result, and switch on notifications. That step is free, takes under an hour, and closes the most common personal data exposures.

Then look honestly at what remains. News coverage, reviews, commentary and public records are outside the tool’s reach and need publisher work, platform appeals or a suppression campaign. If those results are costing you deals, hires or peace of mind, talk to Viral Spike. We will tell you which items are removable, which are not, and what a realistic plan for the rest looks like.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google’s Results About You tool free?

Yes. Results About You is a free feature of Google Search available to anyone with a Google account. There is no paid tier, and no company can accelerate Google’s review by paying. Be cautious of any service that charges specifically to “file your Results About You request,” since the form takes minutes and the outcome depends entirely on Google’s policies.

Does Results About You remove information from the actual website?

No. A successful request removes the result from Google Search only. Google’s own help documentation states that the content may still exist on the web. To get the information deleted, contact the site owner or use the site’s opt-out process. Once the source page is removed, Google drops it from results during normal recrawling.

Will Google remove a news article that mentions my address or arrest?

Usually not. Google’s personal information policy says content that is “important or newsworthy, like the news” may not be taken down even if it contains personal details. News coverage falls outside the tool. Your options are publisher outreach for a correction or update, legal review if the reporting is false, and suppression for everything else.

How long does a Results About You request take?

Google does not publish a timeline. Straightforward requests, such as contact details on a data broker page, are simpler for reviewers than requests involving aggregated information, arguable public interest or content on established sites, and those are the ones most often denied. The dashboard shows each request as in progress, approved or denied, and Google emails you when the status changes.

Can I file a Results About You request on behalf of someone else?

Yes, if you are an authorized representative. Google’s removal policies allow “you or a representative” to start a request, and the subject of the content must be identifiable. Executives often have an assistant or a reputation firm manage the dashboard, though the monitoring notifications go to the Google account that set up the tool.